With a population 470,000, national population rank of 39th, and home of the largest port complex in the country, the City of Long Beach keeps a disproportionately low profile nationally. It also keeps a literally low profile, with much of the city limited to two story buildings. Over the past year, though, residents made a great deal of noise about the city’s first update to its Land Use Element since 1989 and failed attempts by planners to promote more mid-rise development. While the plan accommodates growth and cites a host of progressive goals, community opposition to upzoning led to vicious political battles and, ultimately, the adoption of a scaled-down Land Use Element, in the preliminary form of “PlaceType and Height” maps, on a 8-1 vote March 6. “PlaceTypes” refers to the plan's characterization of land uses; it is designed to de-emphasize specific uses and focuses on the form and character of the city's neighborhoods and districts. The council adopted an accompanying Urban Design Element and directed staff to prepare a programmatic environmental impact report. It was a contentious end to a process that lasted over a decade. Years ago, the Long Beach Planning Department laid out a series of goals meant to update its 1989 general plan and modernize the port city, known for beachy middle class homes on the southeast side (contributing to the nickname “Iowa by the Sea”) and for impoverished, largely minority neighborhoods in its northern half (celebrated as the infamous “LBC” by native Snoop Dogg). Those goals became more progressive with the recession of the late 2000s, which put the planning process on hold. The process resumed in what was, essentially, a different world several years ago, as sustainability and transit-oriented urbanism became more ingrained in planning orthodoxy. “I think it brings our land use element into the 21 st century by including a lot of new best practices in land use that were not even on the table when our element was last done in 1989,” said Linda Tatum, Planning Bureau manager at Long Beach Development Services. The plan is designed to achieve the following goals, according to the Planning Department: Address demand for housing, employment, and lifestyle choices for today and tomorrow. Guide where new development is located and what it should look like. Protect the character of existing single family neighborhoods. Preserve and protect our environment for future generations. Improve pedestrian experience and increase walkability. Aim to reduce the number of residents (76 percent) who commute out of Long Beach for work. Encourage larger open spaces by allowing a moderate increase in height limits in transit-oriented and mixed-use areas. All these goals may indeed by included in the new Land Use Element – but the scaled-down proposal was adopted only after a hugely contentious process over the last few months, during which opponents personally attacked the city’s planners. A Facebook group, “Say No to the LUE” led some of the most public opposition. Managers of the “Say No to the LUE” Facebook group declined to comment for this article. A notice on the group’s page reads, in part, “We forced our representatives to admit their failure to reach the citizens they are supposed to represent, causing them to vastly scale back an overly-ambitious and idealistic LUE, and replace it with one that allows for more modest and pragmatic growth.” Planning Department staff released an initial proposal in November. It recommended increases in residential density but limited those increases to roughly 16 percent of the city, largely on low-rise commercial corridors. For many residents, it was too dense and covered too broad an area. Ultimately, the Planning Department whittled down the LUE, and the City Council shrank it further to result in the maps adopted last week. Council members amended the LUE in the meeting leading up to the vote in fine detail, chopping certain lots zoned for five stories down to three and others from four stories to two. “The map came back to planning commission, who kicked it down a little bit. Staff also kicked it down a little bit in response to the feedback from a significant number of outreach efforts,” said Tatum. The LUE is designed to encourage significant housing and commercial development in the City’s Downtown core, invests in future housing opportunities along the Blue Line light rail, and identifies areas for modest growth throughout the city. Downtown, where the majority of the city’s dense development is expected to occur, was not included in the plan.  This comes against the backdrop of a housing crisis that is particularly acute in coastal cities. Long Beach’s formidable size gave it the potential to absorb a great deal of the region’s growth. Tatum said, though, that the city focused primarily on its own needs. “We know that the city doesn’t exist in a vacuum: everything from the housing crisis to traffic impacts are regional,” said Tatum. “You think about those things, but what’s happening with the regional housing crisis doesn’t in and of itself drive the city’s determination for what we recommend at a local level. We respect the needs of our city, so that was our primary focus.” Original drafts accommodated a generous amount of new housing. Tatum insists that even with the downzoning, the city has zoning capacity to meet its Regional Housing Needs Allocation. The city’s current RHNA allocation calls for the addition of on average 780 units per year. In the past three years, the city has added 300, 150, and 675, respectively. “We feel that the LUE that was adopted by city council last night…can indeed accommodate the city’s regional housing needs allocation,” said Tatum. She added that the LUE does not specify a number of units, in part because the map includes many mixed-use parcels, and the ratio of housing to commercial space that will be developed on those parcels is unpredictable.  The November draft of the LUE says that the plan accommodates a population “expected to reach 484,485 by 2040 a 3.2 percent increase from a population of 466,255 in 2012.” Tatum said that those estimates come from the Southern California Association of Governments. By contrast, the California Department of Finance estimates that the state will grow more than 15 percent in that same time period. New housing, though, is not necessarily the priority of many of the stakeholders who commented on the LUE. Many of the LUE’s amendments reflect the level of public participation in Long Beach and were designed to appeal to individual activists and neighborhood groups. The city’s directory lists 79 official neighborhood associations, many with ultra-specific constituencies. The city’s Wrigley neighborhood alone has five neighborhood associations.  Early drafts of the LUE inspired the formation of new neighborhood coalitions and the strengthening of others, many with a strong slow-growth ethos, in a similar pattern to those seen in many other built-out California cities. With each successive proposal, many groups retrenched their opposition, with city council members following suit. Long Beach realtor and Executive Director of the city’s Council of Neighborhood Organizations (CONO) Robert Fox threatened to run for mayor against incumbent Robert Garcia if demands were not met.  Ultimately, Fox and CONO agreed to support a late version of the LUE.  “We had stakeholders on both sides, and that tells us that we did something right,” said Tatum. “Everybody got something of what they wanted.” Josh Butler, executive director of advocacy group Housing Long Beach, noted that “everybody” is a relative notion. “Only Long Beach's White and Caucasian populations are majority homeowners, and they dominated the conversation. Long Beach's diversity was not represented,” wrote Butler in an email. “Having the voices of the underserved community would have been of great assistance to counter the anti-growth voices that dominated the conversation.”  Butler said that the LUE, in any form, is essentially ineffectual in the absence of effective citywide programs to promote affordable housing, such as an inclusionary housing requirement.  “With no built in component requiring affordable housing be included in market rate developments, the City left themselves in a position, wherein which the community does not believe that future growth will benefit them, and another half of the city who believes that future growth will hurt them,” wrote Butler. “The City placed themselves in a lose-lose situation.”  Tatum said that housing, including affordable housing, falls under the city's housing element , not its land use element. She noted that the Planning Department's housing staff is currently drafting recommendations for the city's housing policy.  The adoption comes after a contentious fall. In November, city staff recommended the reduction of permitted heights and densities across 686 acres that it deemed would have impacted single-family neighborhoods. In December, the Planning Commission voted to recommend those changes. Still, some groups, including “Say No to the LUE” remained wary of the plan, and some council members indicated that they would not vote for it until the last-minute changes.  The debate challenged the leadership of Garcia, who has enthusiastically promoted the city as a progressive place that constitutes more than just cranes and containers. He struck a conciliatory tone in a statement following last week’s vote: “I’m proud of the community and the City Council for adopting a responsible and forward-looking plan that protects residential neighborhoods and invests in our future,” said Garcia in a statement.  The Facebook group’s post invokes the vitriol of some of the discussions, saying, “There are vultures out there, not just politicians, but advocacy groups, lobbyists, special interests, unions, etc, who are all waiting for you to fall into irrelevance and disenfranchisement, so that they can push through their agendas and buy and sell Long Beach.”  Whatever developers’ agenda may be, city planners intend for them to pursue it in a more attractive fashion. Tatum said that she considers the Urban Design Element to be one of the more innovative aspects of the general plan update. And one that may placate anxious residents.  “Addresses it at a fairly granular level….to make sure that new development is compatible and contextual,” said Tatum. “For residents who have concerns about higher density and multifamily built up against single-family residences, it’s important that they know that that is something we gave a lot of thought and attention to.”  Contacts & Resources Long Beach General Plan Update Page November 2017 Draft Josh Butler , Executive Director, Housing Long Beach, jbutler@housinglb.org Linda Tatum , Planning Bureau Manager, Long Beach Development Services, linda.tatum@longbeach.gov

Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders agreed to a $4 billion bond that would fund low-income housing and subsidize home loans for California veterans. This comes at the same time as the Legislature considers a package of legislation designed to address the state’s housing affordability crisis. SB 3 would authorize $3 billion to support construction of new homes for low-income residents and $1 billion for homeownership subsidies for veterans. Senate Bill 2 would add a $75 fee on mortgage refinancing and other real estate transactions to fund low-income home building. Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon are also negotiating a bond measure to fund improvements to water and parks infrastructure. Estimated Cost of High Speed Rail System Rises by $13 Billion The California High Speed Rail Authority released its 114-page draft business plan, which found the cost of the entire system would be between $77.3 to $98.1 billion, an increase of at least $13 billion from two years ago. The authority said the earliest trains could operate between San Francisco and Bakersfield in 2029 and the full system by 2033. The new estimates will force California leadership to double down on its political and financial commitments if it wants to see the system completed. One of the major uncertainties was the cost of the 36 miles of tunnels through mountains in Southern California, which could range from $26 billion to $45 billion. CEO Brian Kelly said if there were greater certainty about future funding it could reduce costs and risks with a best-case scenario projects costs are as low as $63.2 billion. Despite the challenges, nearly 1,700 construction jobs have been created in the Central Valley. MTC Announces Recipients of 'One Bay Area' Grants The One Bay Area Grant 2 (OBAG 2) County Program has pledged approximately $386 million in federal funds to go to 180 transportation projects in 95 jurisdictions across the Bay Area. OBAG 2 is the policy framework for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission's distribution in $862 million in federal Surface Transportation Program and Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program funds from Fiscal Year 2017-18 to 2021-22. The OBAG 2 County Program of Projects was approved by the MTC Commission at the end of 2017. A majority of the funds will be directed to active transportation projects including bicycle and pedestrian projects (15 percent), Safe Routes to School (8 percent), and Transportation for Livable Communities (34 percent) projects. The commissioners also approved revisions to the OBAG 2 Project Selection and Programming Policy to clarify program details for the 80k by 2020 Challenge Grant initiative, a pilot program that incentivizes the production of affordable housing. These revisions also include increasing the number of jurisdictions eligible to receive the challenge grant from 10 to 15, clarify that the preservation of affordable housing units will be credited in the program, and adding a provision that at least one jurisdiction from each county will be awarded a challenge grant. Irvine Ballot Measure Will Determine Future of Voter Approval Irvine voters will decide June 5 if they want to keep the ability to vote on city development projects after Mayor Don Wagner proposed two ballot questions including one that would exempt development agreements approved by the City Council from voter approval. Residents however say this would again completely remove residents from the approval process. Resident Karen Jaffe is spearheading an effort to place a voter initiative on November’s ballot that would require a vote by city residents on developments that have more than 40 housing units, a commercial/industrial development bigger than 10,000 square feet, or converting public land to private use. Wagner accuses Jaffe and her supporters of being anti-growth and irresponsible. Mayor Pro Tem Christina Shea voiced support for Wagner’s ballot proposal saying the city is forecasted to have a $1.3 million drop in sales tax revenues due to online shopping. The other city charter amending proposals includes one that would increase the threshold to a two-thirds majority council vote before placing a tax increased proposal on ballots. Los Angeles Creates Position of Chief Design Officer  Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti appointed Christopher Hawthorne as the first Chief Design Officer, a new post created to improve the quality of civic architecture and urban design across the city. Garcetti contends that Hawthorne will help bring a unified design vision to projects that are shaping the urban landscape, collaborate with city departments and public agencies to promote welcoming, economical and ambitious architecture and urban design. A key part will be to ensure transformative infrastructure and architectural projects are inclusive, accessible, and cost-effective. Hawthorne is a native of Berkeley, graduated from Yale where he studied political science and architectural history and has been serving as the architecture critic for the LA Times since 2004.   Quick Hits & Updates The San Francisco Foundation is teaming up with Facebook to fund affordable housing in Menlo Park and East Palo Alto. The foundation is contributing $1 million to Facebook’s Catalyst Housing Fund to build and protect affordable housing within 15 miles of the company’s hometown. Facebook created the Housing Fund in 2016 with $18.5 million and this will be the first outside contribution. The Foundation is one of the country’s largest community-based philanthropy organizations with over $1.4 billion in assets. It is also partnering with San Francisco and Enterprise Community Partners on the Hope-SP program. (See prior CP&DR commentary .) The Secretary of State reported 25 percent of the 365,880 signatures required by June 25 have been collected to amend Costa-Hawkins in the “Affordable Housing Act” ballot measure. The ballot measure is created by Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Christina Livingston, state director of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Action, and Elena Popp, founder of Eviction Defense Network.  The San Diego City Council unanimously approved legislation that aims to create more housing for middle-income residents, including market-rate “micro” units averaging 600 square-feet. The incentives approved allow developers to build larger housing projects if they set aside some of the units for low-income seniors, former foster youth, disabled military veterans or homeless people. Developers will be allowed to double the size of the project if it consists entirely of units between 600 and 800 square-feet. The City of Los Angeles hopes to finish its modernization and expansion of the Convention Center by 2022 according to minutes from last month’s meeting of the Board of LA Convention and Tourism Development Commission. The current project is a public-private partnership between the city and AEG. AEG had proposed an expansion of the J.W. Marriott through a 38-story, 750-room tower on an existing parking lot but pulled the plans after the city announced its own plans to construct additional hotels on the Convention Center campus. San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin pledged to sue the state to overturn Senate Bill 827 should it be approved. The state bill would increase housing density and heights near transit routes. However, Senator Wiener, author of the bill, critiqued Peskin’s challenge and said “with the average San Francisco rent for a two-bedroom at nearly $5,000 a month, I recommend that Supervisor Peskin focus les son lawsuits and inflammatory rhetoric and more on making sure everyone has a home.” (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Sacramento Superior Court Judge Allen Sumner agreed with a Republican lawmaker that the official title for Proposition 70 , a ballot measure laying out rules for future climate change revenues collected by the state, must be rewritten otherwise voters in June would be misled. The ballot title was originally written as “Limits Legislature’s Authority to Use Cap-and- Trade Revenues to Reduce Pollution” and will be changed to “Requires Legislative Supermajority Vote Approving Use of Cap-and-Trade Reserve Fund.” Prop 70 would require the Legislature to take a one-time vote in 2024 on how revenues collected from cap-and-trade are spent. According to a study by the Governors Highway Safety Association between January and June 2017, 352 people were struck and killed by motor vehicles in California. The majority of state pedestrian fatalities occur in LA County and 20 pedestrians died in San Francisco. In 2014, San Francisco instituted the Vision Zero SF program, which seeks to eliminate all traffic fatalities by 2024. According to a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, new houses are being built fastest in places where they are most likely to burn: wild fringes of urban areas, such as neighborhoods surrounded by canyons, hills, or other open land covered in flammable vegetation. In Southern California between 1990 and 2010, new homes went up twice as fast on the edge of developed lands than in the region as a whole. Riverside County leads the area with over 190,000 more houses built in high-risk areas during that period, an increase of about 75 percent. According to a report from the Real Estate Research Council of Southern California, the city and county of San Diego issued 4 percent fewer residential building permits in 2017 than the previous year. Overall building was down because of a reduction in apartment and condo construction, despite an increase in single-family home construction. Building permits for 9,580 new housing units were pulled in 2017, which is down from 9,972 in 2016 and 9,975 in 2015. Most of Southern California saw increased building permits in 2017, up seven percent among the seven counties, compared to 2016. Only San Diego and Orange counties saw less demand. According to a report from the California Housing Partnership, homeowners received $5.8 billion in subsidies through the ability to deduct interest on their mortgages and property taxes from state tax bills while renters only received $215 million in housing subsidies. The rental subsidies are for low-income renters and a state tax credit for developers to help finance low-income rental projects. Banning City Councilmembers expressed concerns about a proposal to build a bypass to the 10 freeway that the Riverside County Transportation Department wants to construct in the southern part of the city. The bypass would offer an alternative route in case the freeway is closed or at a complete standstill. The councilmembers are worried about wear and tear, cost of upkeep of city streets, traffic through residential areas, and security if trucks are using the bypass to avoid nearby California Highway Patrol inspection station. Banning City Councilmembers expressed concerns about a proposal to build a bypass to the 10 freeway that the Riverside County Transportation Department wants to construct in the southern part of the city. The bypass would offer an alternative route in case the freeway is closed or at a complete standstill. The councilmembers are worried about wear and tear, cost of upkeep of city streets, traffic through residential areas, and security if trucks are using the bypass to avoid nearby California Highway Patrol inspection station.

The City of Los Angeles released its first citywide Resilience Strategy to help prepare for natural disasters and other stresses that the city might face. Mayor Eric Garcetti also signed an executive directive that commits city departments to appoint Chief Resilience Officers who will take the lead in making the city stronger and safer. The city worked with 100 Resilient Cities pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation. The Los Angeles Resilience Strategy features 96 immediate actions that give residents the tools to plan and prepare from earthquakes and flooding to homelessness and climate change. The plan is organized around four main pillars which includes 15 goals: Safe and Thriving Angelenos, Strong and Connected Neighborhoods, Prepared and Responsive City, and Pioneering and Collaborative Partner. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Bay Area Landfill Areas Vulnerable to Sea Level Rise UC Berkeley and Arizona State researchers released a new study in Science Advances that indicates the threat of climate change-driven sea level rise will be a threat particularly for landfill developments such as Treasure Island and Foster City. The research was based on data collected via satellite-based synthetic aperture radar (inSAR) and GPS monitoring from 2011 to 2017. According to senior author Roland Bürgmann, the vulnerability of landfill zones, which are sinking due to soil compaction, means buildings and roadways are sinking as sea level is coming up. Earlier studies on the vulnerable San Francisco Bay shoreline did not take land subsidence into account. S.F. Seeks to Charge TNCs Infrastructure Impact Fees San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a resolution from Supervisor Aaron Peskin that urges state legislators to enable San Francisco to impose infrastructure impact fees on transportation network companies like Uber and Lyft. Peskin pointed out that cities like New York City, Portland, and Philadelphia have “been getting fees in some instances and taxes in others from transportation network companies to ameliorate the impacts they have.” The resolution will be communicated to San Francisco’s state representatives: Senator Scott Weiner and assembly Members David Chiu and Phil Ting. Report Examines South L.A. 50 Years after Unrest According to a new study by the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at UCLA Luskin school, it’s been 50 years since the Kerner Commission’s report on urban unrest and South L.A. has experienced little economic progress. In the 1960s, South LA workers made 80 cents on the dollar compared to the average LA County worker and today it’s closer to 60 cents. The pay gap is widening in part by a steady decline of male wages. The report also finds inequalities in homeownership, car ownership, educational attainment, and early childhood preparation.  Facebook Pitches New Campus to Menlo Park Facebook presented to Menlo Park Planning Commission its plans for a new 59-acre campus that would accommodate an additional 9,500 workers. Facebook executive John Tenanes said the social media giant would have roughly as many employees as the city has residents once its fully built out. Tenanes said Facebook plans to employ approximately 35,000 people east of Highway 101 and the city’s population last year was roughly 35,670. The new campus, Willow Village, would be constructed in four phases and some offices would be occupied by 2021. Willow Village would include 1.75 million square feet of offices, minimum 1,500 housing units, 126,500 square feet of retail, 200 hotel rooms, 18 acres of open space, and a cultural and visitor center. A fear with the project is that it will exacerbate the area’s jobs/housing balance especially as the offices would open before the housing units are completed. Lawmakers Seek to Head Off Displacement in South L.A. Three Los Angeles council members have introduced new measures to prevent displacement in South Los Angeles. The motion notes neighborhoods in South LA are especially vulnerable to displacement, unemployment, wage stagnation, and urban blight which has been reinforced by practices such as historic redlining, foreclosures, and predatory lending. The motion would direct the Chief Legislative Analyst, Community Investment Department, Economic and Workforce Development Department, and the City Attorney to report back with a feasibility study on the former Redevelopment Agency of San Francisco-style program. Survey Claims Downtown Los Angeles Is Fastest-Gentrifying Neighborhood Nationwide A new survey from RentCafe found Downtown Los Angeles (90014) took the number one-spot for fastest gentrifying zip code in the country and 90013 which encompasses parts of Skid Row came in 12th. Between 2000 to 2016, median home values in downtown rose roughly 700 percent. The report used 2000 census and 2016 American Community Survey to examine 11,000 zip codes for median home value, median household income, and population that holds a bachelor’s degree or higher. One downtown resident and broker at the Agency, Maranda Blanton, said it became evident in the new grocery stores that started popping up, “Now we have a Whole Foods, Ralphs, and every dining establishment is looking for a property in Downtown.” The majority of the survey's fastest-gentrifying zip codes are on the East Coast.  Quick Hits & Updates San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott released a 15-page opinion on the proposed ballot initiatives from SDSU for the former Qualcomm Stadium as major concerns of continuing city control. Earlier this year, Elliott’s office issued a similar analysis of SoccerCity’s initiative. The memo notes if the city sells the site to SDSU, it would lose control over the property because the city’s development regulations and processes would not apply. Although terms of a purchase and sale agreement could be made, but are currently unknown until after the election. The environmental review also would not be conducted until after the election.   Riverside County transportation officials are considering adding additional westbound lanes on 91 Freeway toll lanes in Corona because the lanes opened almost a year ago have far surpassed expectations. Since the 91 toll lanes open in March, they’ve been used by 1.2 million vehicles, about 40 percent more than the agency projected. Several communities in California are suing oil and gas companies over climate change. U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled the far-reaching scope of issue puts the matter in federal jurisdiction. The judge denied the request by San Francisco and Oakland to move their cases to state court. The seven cities and counties are seeking to recoup billions of dollars from fossil-fuel-energy producers to compensate for past and future damage incurred because of rising sea levels. Snap Inc , which owns 14 locations and 163,000 square feet of office space in Venice Beach, has announced it will begin leasing more than half of its Venice office space so that it can consolidate hundreds of employees inside a corporate office park near Santa Monica Airport. The company signed a long-term lease for the 300,000 square feet Santa Monica Business Park last year. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) San Bernardino County Transportation Authority is looking at a $425 million project to add express toll lanes on a 12-mile stretch of the 15 freeway from Duncan Canyon Road to Cantu Galleano Ranch Road. The route is heavily used with about 223,000 vehicles a day of which 20,000 are commercial trucks. The authority is now accepting public comments on the draft environmental documents for the project. The comment period will close March 16. Transportation Agency for Monterey County board is set to begin the search for an environmental review and project development consultant for the Fort Ord Regional Trail and Greenway. This 24-mile, 12 foot-wide biking and walking trail would run in two giant loops from Del Rey Oaks to Marina, through the former military base. The $1 million scope of work, funded by state and local money, will start in late June. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Pacific Grove City Council passed an ordinance, 4-1, that turns the city's short-term rental policy to include a lottery system which would get the number of STRs down from 290 to 250 and make it so only 15 percent of housing per block is dedicated to such rentals. The lottery will also include the adoption of a 55-foot zone of exclusion to address density problems. The California State Historical Resources Commission voted unanimously to support the City of Norco’s efforts to get a World War II-era naval hospital and missile research laboratory on the National Register of Historic Places. A previous attempt to get the building recognized was rejected in 2013 after a Navy survey disagreed with the city on the property’s merited inclusion. This time, the city hired a consultant who spent three years documenting the history and compiling thousands of records along with support from historic preservation groups. The Developer of a $72 million apartment project in LA Harbor Gateway neighborhood is being charged with making illegal campaign contributions to local politicians while seeking a zone change for his property. Prosecutors with LA County District Attorney Jackie Lacey’s office charged Samuel Leung with one felony count of conspiracy to commit campaign money laundering and one felony count of offering to bribe a legislator. If convicted, Leung could face up to four years and eight months in state prison. The Long Beach Harbor Commission recently approved plans to build a $820 million railyard that supporters say will cut pollution and speed up cargo handling at the nation’s second busiest port. The 171-acre project is forcing 39 businesses out of the area and with little land available due to marijuana growers moving in. The Port officials say they have already identified spaces for the owners and tenants to move to and will offer fair price for their land. Construction on the railyard could begin in 2020 and will take several years. Rancho Cucamonga City Council approved, 4-1, plans to transform Empire Lakes golf course into a high-density, urban community with new homes, community center, and shops. The Golf Course will be sold May 31 to the Lewis Group of Companies, which plans to build between 2,650 and 3,450 homes and 220,000 square feet of nonresidential uses. The site is a 15 minute walk from the Rancho Cucamonga Metrolink station. Local transportation advocates hope to place a ballot measure before voters in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Orange Counties in 2020 that could fund the electrification of Metrolink . This would allow for higher-frequency service such as four trains per hour between Irvine and Union Station and eight trains per hour between Union Station and Burbank. The opening of Milpitas and Berryessa BART stations will be delayed to January or March 2019 due to delays in testing, breakdowns in communication, and lack of personnel. Ratcliffe did say the project is still within budget. Almost a year after Metro pronounced the 710 freeway extension dead, South Pasadena hired an outside attorney to help the city redouble its efforts to fight the tunnel extension. On March 1, a letter to Caltrans listed four historic structures would be damaged by drilling. Caltrans is the lead agency on the project and until Caltrans signs the environmental analysis the project is not official decided. In May of last year, Metro unanimously voted not to build the tunnel saying the $3-5 billion price tag was prohibitive. San Francisco water officials will begin charging property owners a new “ storm-water fee ” to help with the upkeep of the city’s aging sewer system. However, for the first time 500 vacant lot owners will be included. One resident was notified that starting July 1 he will be assessed $31.46 per month for runoff on his vacant lot. According to the Public Utilities Commission, every inch of rainfall on the 47-square-mile city puts about 430 million gallons into the stormwater runoff system. San Francisco Board of Supervisors  unanimously supported , 9-0, the San Francisco Giants’ 28-acre development at Mission Rock which includes stores, cafes, markets, offices, and up to 1,500 housing units on an existing surface parking lot. The housing would be 40 percent affordable to low-and moderate-income people and include eight acres of open space. Residents in Fresno have asked a judge to overturn the city council’s January approval of a development permit for a proposed industrial park. The South Central Neighbors United filed the lawsuit in Fresno Superior Court and alleges the city did not fully evaluate the potential environmental effects that the project would have on nearby residents. Attorneys for the residents believe the project requires a full EIR to comply with CEQA.

As best I can tell, Bird scooters resemble their namesakes insofar as they look like ashen, emaciated carcasses of storks when they are perched on sidewalks, often to the surprise of unsuspecting pedestrians. This morning, I left my apartment at an unusually early hour and was greeted by a downright Hitchcockian sight: an flock of six of them on my doorstep where, the previous evening, there had been nothing.  One can only imagine the journeys they took, winging their way through the Westside, until coming to roost again.  Bird is based in, and was first deployed in, Santa Monica. It has spread to San Diego  and elsewhere, and, with a fresh $15 million of capital, more cities are to come. Bird’s careers page lists 13 major cities nationwide where they're hiring. This  invasion  presents a moral quandary. I want to hate them. They are annoying and juvenile in the way that all “disruptive” technologies are annoying and juvenile. But I find myself oddly attracted to them.  At their best, Birds are yet another weapon in the war against the “first-mile, last-mile” problem -- and an especially effective one at that. They have evolved from the Precambrian species of bike share, by which ugly, heavy bicycles are made available at docking stations. I like bike share, partly because the docks create a sense of place. But, let’s face it, they’re hard to ride, and they aren’t always where you want to be. Bird scooters are more directly descended from dockless bike share, in which bikes are locked to themselves and located via app and GPS, thus making them footloose. Dockless bikes have proliferated in China where, with competing companies operations semi-legally in the public realm, they have devolved into nuisances in many cities.  Bird improves on this model in a few ways. Most notably, its scooters are motorized, so they can whisk travelers along sidewalks and roads effortlessly. They also solve the eternal sartorial predicament of bicycles. By enabling riders to stand up, they don’t muss one’s clothing. They’re lightweight and, as noted, conveniently thin, so they can maneuver in tight spaces and park just about anywhere.  Lithe as they may be, the scooters travel up to 15 miles per hour and have ranges over 30 miles. Bird resorts to crowd-sourcing to charge and rebalance them every night. I guess I have a neighbor who’s signed on.  For all of these reasons, electric scooters like Birds (and a forthcoming competitor from Limebike, a Chinese dockless bike share company) might be the perfect first-mile, last-mile mode of transportation. My apartment is, for instance, a 5-minute Bird ride to the 720 bus, one of the most heavily traveled bus line in California. You can hop off the Expo Line and on to a Bird and get clear across Santa Monica — roughly three miles square — in 15 minutes.  And yet… Let us count the ways in which Bird scooters offend the sensibilities and violate the law (aside from inviting avian puns). Woe to the wheelchair-bound pedestrian who encounters a “parked” scooter in a sidewalk. I’ve already tossed a few ADA-noncompliant scooters out of the way, but many disabled people will not be so adept. This is one detriment unlikely to be considered by the proverbial 25-year-old aspiring tech billionaire.  Svelte as they are, scooters threaten to turn into visual blight if and when they become too plentiful in high-traffic areas. It’s worth noting that Lime scooters aren’t nearly as skeletal as Birds are.  Scooters beg for violations of the law, including regulations that prohibit riding on sidewalks in certain cities.  A sticker on each Bird scooter reminds riders that they’re required to wear helmets. By my casual count roughly 0 percent of riders comply. So, who’s liable when someone cracks his head on the pavement?  By what rules of God and humanity drivers supposed to follow if they encounter scooters in the street?  As an anarchic element of urbanism, the problems Birds pose are mostly minor and probably correctable. But they should not be allowed to fly under the radar, as so many other “disruptive” services have done. The spats between Uber and city governments have become legendary, as arrogance has run headlong into bureaucracy. The same goes for Airbnb, Lyft, and Uber. Bird is already getting into it  with the City of Santa Monica (and losing ), and San Diego seems none-too-pleased .  Unlike some of those companies, though, Bird seems to have benign origins. Founder Travis VanderZanden left Uber (and previously Lyft) and says he was motivated more by the chance to provide mobility to the masses than by the potential for profit. Quite un-Kalinack of him.  As for urban planners: scooter-share presents either a revelation warranting the wholesale redesign of the pedestrian realm or yet another bauble.  The former scenario may seem extreme, but it goes to one of the core questions of planning: do planners plan cites according to their best principles and let people and technologies make the most of that framework? Or do they accommodate and try to capitalize on new technologies? In terms of transportation, the most extreme example of the former approach would be a subway. The most extreme example of the latter: the automobile.  If scooters proliferate, planners have all the more reason to reclaim pavement from cars, creating more sidewalks, bike lanes, or, indeed scooter lanes. Scooters might warrant further transit investments as they widen the traditional walk-sheds of transit stops. They might influence parking requirements and warrant the conversion of on-street parking spaces into scooter corrals. Or maybe they’re benign enough, and our existing streetscapes accommodating enough, that we can indeed let them evolve organically and not freak out about them.  As Richard Sennett notes in his forthcoming book Building and Dwelling, "every innovation suffers by definition from a mismatch between the ways people currently do things and the way they might do things." And, of course, innovations keep coming, some improving on previous iterations, some neutralizing them, some proving that the previous innovations weren't so innovative after all.  Really, the best response might be to sit tight, let Bird do its thing, and wait for the arrival of flying cars.

If bills were enacted into law based purely on the discussion they provoke, Senate Bill 827 would be a constitutional amendment by now. Proposed in early January by sponsors Scott Weiner and Nancy Skinner, SB 827 would require residential up-zoning along high-frequency transit lines. The bill is intended to both boost housing production statewide and encourage use of public transit.

John Muir appreciated tall mountains, to the great benefit of California. His successors feel differently about tall buildings, to the potential detriment of California.  In the article I wrote a few weeks ago on California’s new crop of housing bills , I cited Sierra Club California’s well known opposition to Senate Bill 827, the controversial bill that would encourage dense development around transit stops statewide. Initially, Sierra Club California’s policy advocate Kyle Jones wrote in a letter to SB 827 sponsor Scott Weiner, that the bill might discourage the development of transit if communities equated transit with unwanted dense development, and it might cause displacement of incumbent residents. He called SB 827 “heavy-handed” and, tellingly, he did not encourage Weiner to revise it but rather urged him “to remove this bill from consideration” entirely.  (The bill is being furiously debated and has already been significantly revised.) Naturally, many housing advocates jumped on the club for seemingly opposing the type of dense, transit-friendly development that would reduce pollution and, indirectly, prevent sprawl.  Needless to say, the Sierra Club has done heroic work to conserve natural landscapes, and has done good work in cities too, like supporting public transit in Los Angeles. While its logic may have been a little tortured, at least its opposition to SB 827 has a thread of sense. In fact, APA Legislative Advocate Sande George told me much the same about the possible unintended consequences of mandatory up-zoning.  Things got weird, though, when I contacted the club for further comment. Rather than reiterate Jones's reasoning, Sierra Club national Communications Director Maggie Kash (based in D.C.) presented a new tack.  Kash sent me a  statement saying that the club was suspicious of anything that infringed on local control. She wrote, "Our concerns are about the mechanism of state-level preemption, which removes local voices from decision-making.” She cited proposed laws in Louisiana and Tennessee in which state law preempted local laws "in an effort to stop local affordable housing mandates.”  Here’s the problem: the laws Kash cited were, by her own description,  designed to downzone. The preemption was against local laws that favored dense development — which the Sierra Club supposedly supports. In other words, those laws didn’t have unintended consequences. They do exactly what their state legislatures designed them to do.  SB 827, whether you love it or hate it, would do the opposite  of those laws. How dumb does Kash think we are?  The club’s opposition, therefore, takes place in some weird backwards land. It’s like ordering steak tartare and getting angry with the chef for not cooking it well done.  Its San Francisco chapter has opposed new housing in San Francisco and been accused of putting “ politics over the planet .” Market-oriented urban critic Scott Beyer called the Sierra Club’s San Francisco chapter a “bastion of faux environmentalism” and cataloged the chapter’s opposition to dozens of projects that would have added thousands of units to the housing-starved Bay Area. Some of these projects would have caused zero displacement. Treasure Island was a military facility; Candlestick Point used to be Candlestick Park.  These positions are, in one way or another, reflective of the same older, wealthier constituencies that oppose new development in California generally. These are the folks who are leading the Sierra Club these days.  What these club leaders may not realize is that they are at odds with the official policies of their own organization.  In 2000, the club sensibly adopted a national plank opposing sprawl, proclaiming , "sprawl is a pattern of increasingly inefficient and wasteful land use that is devastating environmental and social conditions.” What’s the natural opposite of sprawl? Density, of course. And — what do you know — a separate policy plank calls for just that: "Attractive, compact and efficient urban areas; with densities and mixtures of uses that encourage walking and transit use, and encourage more efficient use of private autos in balance with other transportation modes.” And what does the Sierra Club think about the jurisdictional element of land use control? The club adopted this policy  in 1970 and maintains it to this day: "The Sierra Club supports federal legislation to encourage states to establish statewide land-use plans, and urges all states to begin the preparation of such plans.” That’s right: the organization that is opposing SB 827 on the grounds of local control is the same one that has supported statewide land-use plans for the past 48 years.  I hate to say it, but, for all the great work the club has done in the past century, I think maybe it is past its prime. A vital, current Sierra Club could do a great deal of good, for both the natural environment and the urban environment. But, I submit that the club has a good deal of reforming to do before that happens.  Mountains may stand forever, but advocacy groups are fragile. For the good of California and the country -- especially these days -- I hope the Sierra Club rebuilds and refocuses itself before it’s too late.

The San Francisco Planning Department, with support from Mayor Mark Farrell, introduced a zoning ordinance to significantly up-zone a 17-block portion of the South of Market Neighborhood to take advantage of the new Central Subway. The ordinance comes after seven years of study. It would add up to 7,000 housing units and 1 million square feet of tech-related office space. It is estimated that the plan could support 40,000 jobs and $2 billion in public benefits in part through developers fees. The city sees the plan, known as Central SoMa, as a way to maintain the growth of the city’s tech sector when many other areas of the city are built-out or resistent to growth. “It’s a plan that directs jobs growth to the part of the city where it can be best managed,” Planning Director John Rahaim told the S.F. Chronicle. “The original intent of the plan was to find a new location for a certain type of job growth that is not possible in 90 percent of the city.” Becerra Forms Bureau of Environmental Justice California Attorney General Xavier Becerra appointed four lawyers to create a new Bureau of Environmental Justice to focus on low-income Californians and people of color who suffer a “disproportionate share of environmental pollution and public health hazards”. The group will handle legal cases such as the one Becerra recently joined opposing the storage and handling of coal at the Port of Oakland. Becerra has filed 30 lawsuits against the federal government, nearly half of which were attempts to enforce laws ensuring that children have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. The office has said it has won favorable rulings in seven lawsuits.  “The harsh reality is that some communities in California — particularly low-income communities and communities of color — continue to bear the brunt of pollution from industrial development, poor land-use decisions, transportation, and trade corridors,” Becerra said in a statement.  Report Finds High Inequality in California Cities The Brookings Institution has released a report on city and metropolitan income inequality data that shows the trends in household income inequality in the 100 largest US metropolitan areas from 2014 to 2016. The report found big cities like Atlanta, Washington, DC, San Francisco, Boston, New York had the highest rates of income inequality. Newer, more geographically expansive cities such as Riverside and Oxnard had the lowest levels of income inequality. Metropolitan areas with high inequality are San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Jose, and Fresno. In general, more cities experienced declines in income inequality from 2014 to 2016 than saw increases. Household incomes increased in San Jose and Los Angeles between the two years. Silicon Valley Experiments with Agricultural Preservation Farm preservationists are pursuing an innovative agricultural conservation easement for a 115-acre property in Santa Clara Valley in order to preserve one of the last agricultural parcels in the area. The Santa Clara County Planning and Development Department and the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority and were interested in using cap-and-trade funds earmarked for mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and loss of land to high-speed-rail to keep farmers farming. The statewide program called the Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation Project has committed $76 million and high-speed rail $20 million to be disbursed through the Department of Conservation. The Santa Clara Valley Ag Plan is the first of its kind to merge protection of farmlands with California’s climate strategies by replacing the incentive for growers to cash out to land speculators. The first deal, Fountain Oaks Ranch, a 70-acre bell pepper and sweet corn farm in Morgan Hill was purchased for $7 million and is probably the most expensive agricultural easement ever purchased by a public entity in the state. San Diego Adopts Carbon Offset Scheme San Diego Board of Supervisors have unanimously supported a carbon credit scheme that would allow developers to pay for offsite credits instead of decreasing greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks that would result from proposed housing and commercial projects in unincorporated parts of the county. The Board of Supervisors argues that efforts to limit human-induced warming should be balanced with the need to address California’s on-going housing crisis. However, environmental groups are opposed to credits, which can apply to projects anywhere in the world. They argue offsetting tailpipe emissions wouldn't be necessary if the county contained new development within urbanized areas. The county currently has about a dozen development projects awaiting approval by county authorities that could require carbon credits to offset their GHG emissions. Ride-Hailing Detracts from Transit, Active Transportation A consensus among outside researchers is that ride-hailing companies are pulling riders off buses, subways, bicycles, and their own feet and putting them in cars instead. One study surveyed 944 ride-hailing users over four weeks in 2017 and found nearly 60 percent said they would have used public transportation, walked, biked or skipped the trip if the ride-hailing apps weren’t available. The study from Northeastern also found that “ride sharing is pulling from and not complementing public transportation.” A study in Manhattan’s central business district found the increase in the number of taxis and ride-sharing vehicles waiting for their next trip request are contributing to slow traffic. In San Francisco is was found that on a typical weekday, ride-hailing drivers make more than 170,000 vehicle trips, about 12 times the number of taxi trips. Quick Hits & Updates BART officials are starting to study a second Transbay Tube which would be the biggest Bay Area infrastructure project since the BART system was build more than 50 years ago. It would most likely cost between $12 and $15 billion at a minimum. Several routes are being considered, including Alameda and emerging in Mission Bay, paralleling the existing tube but heading up Mission Street on the west side of the bay instead of Market, or between Alameda and AT&T Park. Last week the city of San Jose became the fourth, and largest city in the state to adopt VMT metrics . The city implemented the change end of 2017 as part of a larger effort to realign how we measure transportation impacts with the kinds of transportation investments they encourage. While traditionally, the city measured vehicle delay at intersections the city is moving towards new measurements and tools to enhance mobility and help realized the General Plan’s vision of a vibrant and livable city. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s board of directors unanimously agreed to support rebuilding some intersections and ramps along the 19-mile 710 Freeway but stopped short of adding a new lane in each direction. The Directors asked Metro to prepare a list of improvements that could be built quickly with an analysis of the benefits for safety, transportation and air quality and also requested an analysis of ways to separate freight and commuter traffic, including reserving toll lanes for zero-and low-emission trucks. Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg and the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency (SHRA) announced they had released a request for information from local developers who could build 1,000 “efficiency homes” to help shelter the city’s growing homeless population. Steinberg and housing officials are offering more than $200 million in Section 8 housing vouchers that would provide guaranteed rental income for tiny home projects and help developers attain financing as well as 4.5 million square feet of vacant land. Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) latest Long Range Transportation Plan includes a $237 million proposal to extend carpool lanes on I-5 from Avenida Pico to the San Diego County line. The project is on the “proposed” instead of “conceptual” list and has a cost estimate attached to it. OCTA is also accepting application for $12 million in grants to help Orange County cities provide summer trolleys that offer free rides to the public. Silicon Valley billionaire Vinod Khosla filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that he should not be required to allow public access to Martins Beach in San Mateo County. Khosla argues the California Coastal Commission violated his property rights by requiring him to obtain a permit to padlock the gates to a shoreline that families used back to the 1920s after he purchased 89 acres surrounding the beach. If the Supreme Court takes up the question, it could turn into a fight over the future of California’s coastal laws. Bay Area Council released a poll on Uber, Lyft, and Chariot and found San Franciscans view these services in a positive light (64 percent) and 66 percent had a good opinion on Muni. The survey showed almost half of respondents (48 percent) opposed limiting the number of ride-hailing vehicles on the roads while 44 percent said they support such limits. Overall those surveyed said regulating tech was a low priority with only 27 percent saying it was very important compared to addressing homelessness (73 percent), affordable housing (56 percent) and neighborhood crime (50 percent). The second phase of Los Angeles Metro’s Purple Line  subway extension is officially underway in Century City. The 2.59-mile extension final destination is the Veterans Affairs West LA campus. The project has a $2.53 billion budget including $1.5 billion from a federal grant and loan, and the project is expected to be completed by 2025. It will run west from Wilshire Boulevard and La Cienega Avenue to Century City, passing underneath Beverly Hills High School along the way. The Department of Motor vehicles announced it will allow fully autonomous cars without safety drivers to test on public roads. The DMV outlined a permitting process for companies wishing to deploy driverless vehicles without anyone behind the wheel. The state’s Office of Administrative Law approved the regulations and public notice will go on the DMVs website March 2, which starts a 30-day clock before the first permits can be issued April 2. Companies will be able to apply for three types of permits: testing with a safety driver, driverless testing, and deployment. The Legislative Analyst’s Office released a report "California Losing Residents Via Domestic Migration," which found that between 2007 and 2016, about five million people moved to California from other states while six million left. Migration into the state was primarily from New York, Illinois, and New Jersey while Californians leaving the state left for Texas, Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon. The article also includes information on income, education, and age. A court hearing in San Diego Superior Court began last week to determine whether members of the California Coastal Commission failed to properly disclose private meetings, known as ex-parte communications, as required under the Coastal Act. The commissioners being charged could face hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. The California Court of Appeal upheld the trial court’s judgment and the city of Visalia’s final EIR for its 2030 General Plan Update. The court determined an EIR does not need to study urban decay unless a fair argument can be made that the potential economic consequences of a project are such a magnitude so as to cause physical changes in the environment, court cannot disturb a general plan for internal inconsistency, and when a local agency holds one properly noticed public hearing additional meetings are not subject to the California Planning and Zoning Law’s 10 days’ notice requirement. Sacramento County is leading a lawsuit accusing state officials of holding secret illegal meetings about the controversial Delta tunnels project . The city of Stockton, several Delta water agencies, and a group of environmental organizations joined the lawsuit against the State Water Resources Control Board. The suit alleges officials with the Water Resources Control Board met privately with DWR and US Bureau of Reclamation representatives as far back as 2015. The plaintiffs said the secret meetings provide evidence of “deliberate obstruction, and possible collusion”. The High Speed Rail Authority’s new CEO Brian Kelly said the HSR will take longer to build and cost more than previously estimated under the soon-to-be-released business plan, but plans to begin the project by linking the Bay Area to the Central Valley remain intact. The new 2018 business plan with new cost estimates will be released March 9.

The City and County of San Francisco and the State Lands Commission  reached a settlement in a dispute over Proposition B, which voters approved four years ago to give residents a say in waterfront development. The settlement enables the measure’s checks on high-rise buildings to stand but city officials had to guarantee that future projects would benefit not only San Francisco but all state residents. The lawsuit claimed San Francisco’s bayfront should be regulated with broader interests, by the largely independent San Francisco Port Commission, and by not the city and its voters. According to City Attorney Dennis Herrera “this agreement protects the will of San Francisco voters. It ends this lawsuit while ensuring that voters continue to have their voices heard when it comes to the use, access and enjoyment of San Francisco’s waterfront.” Local Approvals Processes, not CEQA, Hinder Housing Production A new report from UC Berkeley and Columbia University absolves the California Environmental Quality Act from blame for the state’s housing shortage. Rather local governments' regulations and approvals schemes are more likely to slow down housing projects. The study examined San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Redwood City, and Palo Alto and found all except Palo Alto require a project-by-project review of any proposal with two or more homes, no matter if the development is planned on land zoned for the proposed amount of housing. The report also found that about 20 percent of the 27,612 homes proposed between 2014 and 2016 in these five cities had to undergo a full environmental analysis under CEQA, a process that can easily take a year. The main policy recommendation from the report is the importance of improving access to good data such as GIS or zoning data with assessor parcel information and building permit systems. Sea Level Rise Imperils Salt Marshes According to a new study by a team of scientists led by the US Geological Survey, salt marshes in California and Oregon could disappear  entirely by 2110. These projections are based on current estimations of sea level rise on the west coast. Coastal marshes naturally adapt to sea level rise by migrating inland, but California has built the Pacific Coast Highway and developed up to the edges of basically every marsh throughout the state. Having these buffers of vegetation between the land and sea would protect against significant flooding. One option involves adding thin layers of sediment to a salt marsh plain to increase its elevation but this would be expensive and must be repeated to keep pace with sea level rise. The other option would be for officials to strategically acquire property along the coast and keep it open for marshes to migrate inland. 2018 Urban Greening Grant Applications Welcomed The California Natural Resources Agency has opened the solicitation period for the Urban Greening Grant Program. The guidelines released assist in preparing an application for funding. Online applications are due April 11, 2018 and eight workshops have been put together to provide help and guidance in preparing applications. Sacramento, Lynwood, and Indio had workshops earlier this month while Oakland is Tuesday February 27, Visalia March 2, Redding March 5, San Diego March 8, and Ontario March 12. Statewide Greenhouse Gas Emissions Drop Compared to GDP The California Energy Commission (CEC) reports that greenhouse gas emissions continue to drop in California even as the state grows its economy and population. The state’s carbon pollution per million dollars of California GDP has declined 33 percent since 2001, while GDP has grown 37 percent between 2001 and 2015. In CEC latest tracking progress report on greenhouse gases, it found the transportation sector directly accounts for 38 percent of GHG emissions in California. The report suggests once the state’s transportation system shifts from gasoline to zero- and low-emission vehicles there will be a larger reduction in emissions. Gov. Jerry Brown recently signed an executive order that sets a new target of 5 million zero-emission vehicles in California by 2030. Inland Empire Cities Due over Light Rail Construction The cities of San Dimas and Pomona filed lawsuits against the Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority in October and still have not settled despite continuing dialogue and concessions made by the authority. The separate lawsuits are saying last-minute changes to the alignment, bridges, and plans to acquire properties will cause permanent damage to their cities and are a violation of state environmental laws. The two cases were assigned to Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Yvette Palazuelos. S.F. Muni Could be Split into Two Agencies San Francisco Supervisors Ahsha Safai and Aaron Peskin introduced a charter amendment in December to split up the Municipal Transportation Agency into one that manages streets and parking and another that manages Muni buses and trains. Opposition came from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and other transit-related groups, saying the split could harm critical transportation projects in the city. Now, Safai is proposing a new “appeal process” that would allow residents who disagree with SFMTA board decisions to ask the Board of Supervisors to have the final say. The amendment to split SFMTA has been moved from the June ballot to the November ballot as a contingency plan should the appeal process not work out. San Diego Studies Proposed Housing Bond Ballot Measure San Diego City Council committee voted 4-1, to have city staff further evaluate  a proposed $900 million bond measure to build low-income housing. The proposal would raise taxes on property owners in the city to an average of $72 per year to pay for roughly 7,500 subsidized apartments for the chronically homeless, veterans, senior citizens, the disabled, and low-income families. Supporters of the measure say it would simultaneously solve the city’s homelessness problem and affordable housing crisis. Having such local money would make the state eligible to secure a greater share of state money devoted to homelessness and affordable housing by providing local matching funds. The full council will decide this summer whether to place it on the November ballot. Quick Hits & Updates Environmental groups sued the City of Moreno Valley after the city approved the World Logistics Center in 2015, alleging the environmental review process was inadequate. A judge ruled that the EIR is inadequate, meaning the warehouse developer may need to perform additional studies before construction can begin. Residents are concerned about the health effects from exhaust as the project is estimated to generate 69,000 car and truck trips each day. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) A San Francisco Mission District housing development has been delayed over the question of whether the 1924 building, which now houses a laundromat, is of historic value. Supervisor Hillary Ronen, with unanimous approval, decided to explore whether the property was a “historic resource” and delayed the project until the next hearing on June 19. The San Jose City Council unanimously approved , 11-0, a pricing agreement to sell some government-owned properties to Google that would be key pieces in the proposed transit-oriented community in downtown San Jose. The village will be near the Diridon transit station and SAP entertainment complex. Google is purchasing the nine parcels for $67 million, which the city originally purchased for $26 million. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) RentCafe has found a significant increase in the number of renters nationwide between 2006 and 2016. In 2006, the cities with the largest share of renters were on the east coast, but now significantly more California cities have made the list. Stockton and San Bernardino have 54 percent renters, Anaheim 58 percent, Santa Ana 57 percent, Fresno 52 percent, and Sacramento 50 percent. San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott says the city can allow dockless bike share services to begin operating as long as the city’s involvement doesn't go beyond issuing approvals in its regulatory capacity. LimeBike and Ofo will begin dockless bike sharing networks, which environmentalists say could sharply increase use of bikes for commuting. LimeBike also plans to roll out its electric assist bikes and scooters in the city. Fresno's FAX Q bus rapid transit began operations last week. There are currently 17 40-foot-long buses that will travel along high-speed routes on Blackstone Avenue to downtown and from Ventura Avenue and Kings Canyon Road to Clovis Avenue. The State Controller’s Office released updated guidelines regarding gas tax expenditures for cities and counties. The update includes a section on what types of expenditures are allowed for the new Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Account created in SB1. The California Transportation Commission has indicated May 1 as the deadline to submit FY2018-2018 project lists. San Diego State University says it will not be able to meet growing demand for enrollment or evolve into a top 50 public research school unless it opens a satellite campus on the site of SDCCU Stadium (formerly Qualcomm) in Mission Valley. This contradicts FS Investors claim that SDSU has ample room to grow on main campus and only wants the SDCCU property as the site of a stadium. FS Investors is behind the soccer stadium proposal. Both proposals will appear on the ballot in November for San Diego voters to decide. Gov. Jerry Brown has appointed Laurie Berman to serve as the new Director of Caltrans . Berman has served as Caltrans Acting Chief Deputy Director since October 2017 and has a 34-year history with the agency. Her appointment ensures that Caltrans will move forward seamlessly with its transportation priorities, particularly SB1, the Road Repair and Accountability Act. Orange County staffers are trying to find motel operators that would accept homeless guests for 30 days as hundreds of people are being moved from a tent city along the Santa Ana river. The county has placed 400 people since mid-February but there are at least 100 to 200 more people who need to be housed and are having difficulty finding motels willing to accept the residents. City of Fullerton City Council approved , 3-2, a plan to build the land around the historic Fox Theater. While the exact developments for the surrounding site are unknown, the city will sell two of the city-owned parking lots for development. City staff is now in the early stages of preparing contracts for the project with Pelican Communities. The full project is expected to take three to five years to complete. Santa Rosa City Council approved , 6-1, the Round Barn Boulevard plan which was proposed before the fire in October will transform a long-abandoned business space into 237 town homes clustered around a 21-acre green space. The council initially considered the development in December, but failed to come to an agreement on whether it was safe to build in the area. Two new towers are proposed for downtown San Jose that would add 653 residential units and groundfloor retail. The project dubbed Davidson Plaza Towers would be located near Diridon transit station and the proposed Google transit-oriented community of offices and other facilities.  LA Metro Board of Directors voted unanimously, 13-0, to keep  Claremont’s Metrolink stop in service. The Metrolink station will be moved across College Avenue in 2021 to make room for the new Gold Line station, which will extend light rail service to Claremont. Last fall, because of a $300 million budget shortfall Metro investigated the impact of eliminating Metrolink stations along the extension route.

The low point in my occasional career as a rider of public transit came a few months ago when I looked down the center aisle of an Expo Line car to discover that the (apparently) homeless guy at the front of the car was not merely homeless but also drinking gin straight from a plastic bottle.  Rest assured, this incident has not scared me away from public transit. According to a recent report by the UCLA institute for Transportation Studies, incidents like it haven’t dissuaded other riders either – they’re dissuaded for other reasons. Across the Southern California Association of Governments region, annual transit trips per capita have fallen from a high of 42 in 2007 to 34 in 2016. The biggest enemy of transit these days, as it has been for the past 100 or so years, is the automobile.  I’ve never bought the idea that Angelenos have a “love affair with cars.” They just have the misfortune of living in a city where driving a car makes it a lot easier to do other things — like, say, hold down a job. Under the right circumstances, Angelenos would be just as happy to walk, bike, or take transit as they are to drive. Unfortunately, the circumstances are far from right. UCLA reports that, between 2000 and 2015, private vehicle ownership increased, from 1.7 to 2.4 vehicles per household. This dramatic increase stems largely from increased car ownership among newcomers to the region, who tend, by and large, to be low-income immigrants. The share of foreign-born households without a car dropped by 42 percent between 2000 and 2015. These tend to be the very same people who comprise the vast majority of transit riders in the region: the often-pitied class known as “transit-dependent riders.” The average resident of the SCAG-region made about 35 transit trips in 2016, but the median resident made none. That’s because less than 3 percent of the region’s commuters ride “frequently,” meaning that a small number of individuals take hundreds of rides per year, compared to none for most residents. When one of those high-frequency riders gets a car, ridership drops accordingly.  That’s a virtuous cycle, of a sort. What’s not so virtuous is the region’s housing crisis. Low-income residents essentially cannot choose where to live – meaning they can’t choose housing close to work, and they can’t choose housing that makes transit convenient. Really, the transit crisis results from the housing crisis. Los Angeles’ shortage of housing and shortage of high-density transit-friendly neighborhoods has run headlong into the obscene, bacchanalian overabundance of automobiles. They might not be making any more land, but we produce cars as if in an Ayn Rand fantasy (only to drive them in a drab, Gosling-less version of La La Land ). And for each new Tesla that rolls off the assembly line, that’s one more used Ford, Chevy, or Toyota to hit the market for cheap.  Meanwhile, the apartment equivalent of a 2001 Corolla is impossible to find. The housing shortage means that every time a unit is vacated – especially if it’s rent-controlled – rents keep going up. That’s because we don’t produce enough units – be they market-rate or subsidized – to keep up with demand. In other words, people with a little more change in their pocket can buy cars. But it takes a lot more than pocket change to find an optimal place to live. In fairness, the UCLA report cites the effects of ridesharing, gas prices, and, yes, the occasional wino who makes transit unpleasant. And some new rail lines are doing well, often beating ridership projections. But none of these factors compares with the increase in driving, and, I reckon, no factor fuels the increase in driving more so than the shortage of well-located, fairly-priced housing.  Transit-heavy areas were those that are either dense enough to support transit or poor enough to require transit. The UCLA report notes that 60 percent of the region’s commuters live in neighborhoods covering 0.9 percent of the region’s land area. Increasing that number will require development of new transit-oriented neighborhoods. It requires fancy new apartments for the would-be Tesla drivers. And it requires the equivalents of those 2001 Corollas – older apartments that trickle down to new tenants without somehow becoming more expensive with each passing year. The report also holds out hope for the elusive but tantalizing discretionary rider. Whether enough do-gooders and milennial urbanists can jump on board to compensate for the loss of the transit-dependents is anyone’s guess. Indeed, that too depends on having enough transit-oriented housing that the hipsters and the transit-dependent can live, and ride, side-by-side. That’s why, regardless of what this means for Metro’s farebox, the bigger issue here concerns the physical and social fabric of California’s cities and, indeed, of the California dream. For decades, the California dream and the American dream were one in the same: suburban-style homeownership (at least for folks of the correct skin color). Today, that dream is either inaccessible or unappealing to many Californians, and other dreams are in short supply. And so, the Automobile Dream — which used to be a complement to, rather than a replacement for, the American Dream — persists.  I don’t know exactly where this dream is driving everyone. I know, though, that it’s almost enough to drive me to drink. Just not while I’m riding a train.

Overturning a trial court ruling, the First District Court of Appeal has ruled that the City of Lafayette erred in refusing to place a referendum on a zone change on the ballot – further fueling momentum for the California Supreme Court to overturn a longstanding appellate court ruling regarding referenda on zoning ordiances.

CP&DR Vol. 33 No. 2 February 2018

The other day, Peter Detwiler – the now-retired guru of California local government – reminded me that this month marks the 40 th anniversary of the release of Gov. Jerry Brown’s urban strategy for California. It’s an impressive document – both pithy and visionary. And in this world of climate policy and the mandate for greenhouse gas emissions reduction, it’s worth remembering that the more things change, the more they stay the same.